MOST RECENT ARTICLES BY:

John Leonard

  1. twin peaks at 30
    Why Is America So Fascinated With Twin Peaks?Revisiting a 1990 New York magazine cover story.
  2. from the archives
    From the Archives: John Leonard’s Twin Peaks Cover StoryFrom the May 7, 1990 issue of New York Magazine.
  3. CrashIt’s possible that Crash, a thirteen-part spinoff of the big-screen screed that inexplicably won an Oscar for Best Picture in 2005, will end up […]
  4. CrusoeWoe is Defoe. Rather than bother with his novel, the producers of this swashbuckling series settle instead for pastiche.
  5. Desperate MeasuresReturning dramas up the emotional ante in lieu of good ideas. Plus, Crusoe and Crash.
  6. Good Slater, Bad SlaterMy Own Worst Enemy makes the most of its erratic star, but Eleventh Hour sadly wastes its own.
  7. Life on MarsEven after the novelty wore off the BBC original of this time-traveling cop show, there was a remarkably squalid Manchester to contemplate
  8. Kath & KimCopycatted from an Australian TV template, ‘Kath & Kim’ wants to be a combo platter of ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ and ‘Gilmore Girls.’
  9. Another Night, Another PsychicThe Mentalist floats (or sinks) on the charms of its star, Simon Baker.
  10. New AbnormalitiesFlesh eaters from J.J. Abrams and bloodsuckers from Alan Ball. Oh my.
  11. More Lawyers With LibidosSteven Bochco’s Raising the Bar lowers it further.
  12. Saving Grace If you were paying attention to the bonus episodes of Holly Hunter’s police-detective series in December, you now know that the biggest issue i […]
  13. The CloserKyra Sedgwick’s Brenda Johnson is back for another summer season at the Los Angeles Police Department.
  14. Burn NoticeYou don’t have to be the least bit interested in which clandestine government agency decided that Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) wasn’t worth […]
  15. A Messy Benjamin Bratt Insists on Cleaning Up OthersAnd shadowy detectives run amok across the cable dial.
  16. HBO’s Terrific Summer Buzz KillFrom the folks who brought you The Wire, a Baghdad dystopia that’s bleaker than Baltimore.
  17. Witness ProtectedWill this summer’s sexiest slam-bang drama make it out alive?
  18. Roman Polanski: Wanted and DesiredYes, his mother perished in the Holocaust. Yes, his wife was murdered by the Manson gang. Yes, even the straight-arrow prosecuting attorney agre […]
  19. Sybil’Sybil’ asks us immediately to accept shattered crystal and Russian matryoshka dolls as twin images of a fine mind broken into jagged fragments […]
  20. Wife Swap, the Early YearsIt’s 1976, and CBS’ Swingtown is stoned on Thorazine.
  21. Final ApproachDean Cain, plays a defrocked FBI agent who must save a passenger plane from a white-supremacist terrorist cult.
  22. The Andromeda StrainThis mini-series actually improves on the original 1969 Michael Crichton sci-fi non-thriller, which spent too much time in a fab lab in the dese […]
  23. Ah, FloridaIn HBO’s Recount, the Austin Powers director turns to the state of electoral dysfunction.
  24. Never Leave Your Daughter Alone at the CircusAn American Crime’s explicit yet abstruse torturing of Ellen Page.
  25. The New York Canon: TVFrom Rhoda to Seinfeld to Samantha Jones, this is New York in a box.
  26. America (The Cable Show)A newly naturalized Tracey Ullman riles up her adopted country, Arianna Huffington included.
  27. Five Years InIf you’ll watch only one television program on the catastrophe in Iraq, make it this one.
  28. The Frog PrincePaul Giamatti’s John Adams is no swashbuckler, but the HBO show rises like a hot-air balloon.
  29. Catching Up to the JonesesPhylicia Rashad and Sean Combs do what it takes to leave Chicago’s South Side.
  30. The BelieverThe kooky, mystical Eli Stone asks, “What Would George Michael Do?”
  31. Couch SurfingHBO’s In Treatment prescribes the talking cure five days a week.
  32. High Schools These DaysThe broke chemistry teacher in Breaking Bad turns out to be pretty handy in a meth lab.
  33. Future FightersThe Terminator franchise lands on television with atavistic androids and a sizzling Sarah Connor.
  34. Twilight Over BaltimoreThe Wire draws to a close, but not before zeroing in on one more failed institution.
  35. The Year in TVAngie Harmon renewed our faith in the cop show, Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver blew up the class divide, Queen Latifah doled out condoms, and Mi […]
  36. Dark Holiday FareKyra Sedgwick lies her way through The Closer, and an entirely campy Tin Man reimagines The Wizard of Oz.
  37. Solving GraceA four-part finale cracks the riddle of Saving Grace’s engrossing, self-destructive lead.
  38. Watch This InsteadIt’s a good week to practice watching documentary television. Not only will we need to be in serious shape if a long writers’ strike chokes off […]
  39. ‘The Deal’Writer Peter Morgan, director Stephen Frears, and actor Michael Sheen have an unnatural interest in the politician Tony Blair.
  40. ‘Carol Burnett: A Woman of Character’Not only is this “American Masters” valentine to the great comedienne well deserved and overdue, but it’s surprisingly adequate to its surpassin […]
  41. Murder, They WroteBig-shot crime novelists talk about true cases they didn’t fictionalize—but maybe should have.
  42. Sing for the MoneyViva Laughlin soft-shoes its way into treacherous territory: the TV musical.
  43. Charmed and DangerousA sultry Angie Harmon makes The Women’s Murder Club a pleasure; Life feels more like punishment.
  44. ‘Five Days’Be thankful that this BBC co-production takes its sweet time exploring the story of a blonde young mother and her two small mixed-race children […]
  45. ‘Back to You’By now you know that shortly before self-important TV news anchorperson Chuck Darling left Pittsburgh for Los Angeles, he actually knocked up th […]
  46. Embarrassment of RichesDirty Sexy Money takes welcome jabs at the upper crust, while Gossip Girl offers predators in kneesocks.
  47. Are You Sitting Down?With time travelers, vampire detectives, grim reapers, and bionic women, the new TV lineup runs from intriguing to absurd.
  48. TorchwoodIn a bunker beneath Cardiff, in a convenient rift in the space-time continuum, Captain Jack’s supersecret “Torchwood” team of young scientist-in […]
  49. Most Honorable SonMeet Ben Kuroki, now 90 years old. A Nebraska-born Nisei he volunteered for the Army after Pearl Harbor, served on an elite B-24 bomber unit, wa […]
  50. The Big UneasyIn the cop drama K-Ville, New Orleans serves as a stormy backdrop for low-rent noir and pent-up rage.
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